If there was a Japanese actor that
could rival the career of Toshiro
Mifune, it would have to be Tatsuya Nakadi.
Best known for his roles as the title character
in Kagemusha
(1980) and Lord Hidetora Ichimonji in Ran
(1985), Nakadai started his career at Shochiku
with the film The Thick-Walled Room before
moving on to The Human Condition series.
Nakadai's first role in a Toho film would be a
small part in Akira
Kurosawa's epic film: Seven
Samurai(1954). Tatsuya Nakadai
would work with Kurosawa again on Yojimbo
(1961), as the gun touting Unosuke. Nakadai would
appear in several more Kurosawa films, often as
the antagonist to Mifune's character. When Kurosawa
and Mifune went there separate ways after personal
issues, Nakadai would replace Mifune in Kurosawa's
movies as the leading man in such films as Kagemusha
(1980) andRan
(1985). Some of Nakadai's latest roles would include
that of the father in the 2003 film Like
Asura, a movie adaption of the 1979 TV
series of the same name, and his role of Sahei
Inugami in Kon Ichikawa's Murder of the Inugami Clan (2006).